text:
Burma campaign 1944–1945 | |||||||||
Part of the Burma campaign during World War II | |||||||||
Two British soldiers patrol the ruins of Bahe in Federated Shan States, Central Burma, January 1945. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Belligerents | |||||||||
| Thailand | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
The Burma campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was fought primarily by British Commonwealth, Chinese and United States forces[5] against the forces of Imperial Japan, who were assisted by the Burmese National Army, the Indian National Army, and to some degree by Thailand. The British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from the United Kingdom, British India and Africa.
Partly because monsoon rains made effective campaigning possible only for about half of the year, the Burma campaign was almost the longest campaign of the war. During the campaigning season of 1942, the Japanese had conquered Burma, driving British, Indian and Chinese forces from the country and forcing the British administration to flee into India. After scoring some defensive successes during 1943, they then attempted to forestall Allied offensives in 1944 by launching an invasion of India (Operation U-Go). This failed with disastrous losses.
During the next campaigning season beginning in December 1944, the Allies launched several offensives into Burma. American and Chinese forces advancing from northernmost Burma linked up with armies of the Chinese Republic advancing into Yunnan, which allowed the Allies to complete the Burma Road in the last months of the war. In the coastal province of Arakan, Allied amphibious landings secured vital offshore islands and inflicted heavy casualties, although the Japanese maintained some positions until the end of the campaign. In Central Burma however, the Allies crossed the Irrawaddy River and defeated the main Japanese armies in the theatre. Allied formations then followed up with an advance on Rangoon, the capital and principal port. Japanese rearguards delayed them until the monsoon struck but an Allied airborne and amphibious attack secured the city, which the Japanese had abandoned.
In a final operation just before the end of the war, Japanese forces which had been isolated in Southern Burma attempted to escape across the Sittang River, suffering heavy casualties.
Background edit
Allied plans edit
As the monsoon rains ended late in 1944, the Allies were preparing to launch large-scale offensives into Japanese-occupied Burma. The main Allied headquarters for the British, Indians and Americans in the theatre of war was South East Asia Command, based at Kandy in Ceylon and commanded by Admiral Louis Mountbatten. The command had considered three major plans as far back as July 1944.[6]
- Plan "X": The main effort was to be made by the American-led Northern Combat Area Command, with support from the British Fourteenth Army. Starting from Mogaung and Myitkyina which had been captured in mid-1944, the NCAC would link up with the Chinese Expeditionary Force of the National Revolutionary Army attacking from Yunnan province under General Wei Lihuang about Lashio. The aim was to complete the Ledo Road, which would link Assam in north-east India with Yunnan, supplementing The Hump airlift which delivered aid and war material to China.
- Plan "Y": The major effort was to be made by Fourteenth Army, across the Chindwin River into Central Burma, with the aim of capturing Mandalay and linking up with the NCAC and Yunnan Chinese around Maymyo, about 20 miles (32 km) east of Mandalay
- Plan "Z": Under this plan, which would later be developed into Operation Dracula, the main effort would be an amphibious and airborne attack on Rangoon, the capital and principal port of Burma. If successful, this would isolate the Japanese in Burma from their lines of communication and force them to evacuate the country.
When these plans were studied, it was found that the resources required for Plan "Z" (landing craft, aircraft carrier groups etc.) would probably not be made available until the war in Europe was won. Mountbatten nevertheless proposed to attempt Plans "Y" and "Z" simultaneously but Plan "Y" was adopted and renamed Operation Capital. Under this, Fourteenth Army (supported by 221 Group RAF) would make the major offensive into Central Burma, where the terrain and road network favoured the British and Indian armoured and motorised formations. The NCAC and Yunnan Chinese (supported by the United States Tenth and Fourteenth Air Forces) would make subsidiary advances to Lashio, while the XV Corps (supported by 224 Group RAF) would seize the coastal province of Arakan, securing or constructing airfields which could be used to supply Fourteenth Army.[7]
Japanese plans edit
In the aftermath of their defeats the previous year, the Japanese had made major changes in their command. The most important was the appointment of Lieutenant General Hyotaro Kimura to command Burma Area Army, succeeding General Masakazu Kawabe. Kimura was primarily a logistician who had previously been Vice-Minister of War and it was hoped that he could use the natural and industrial resources of Burma to make his army self-sufficient. Nevertheless, the Southern Expeditionary Army Group, which had overall control of all Japanese land forces in Southern Asia and much of the Pacific Ocean and was commanded by Field Marshal Hisaichi Terauchi, found 60,000 reinforcements for Kimura's army, with equipment for three infantry divisions and 500 lorries and 2000 pack animals for the lines of communication. Allied air attacks strangled the Japanese communications via the Burma Railway and the port of Rangoon and only 30,000 of the intended reinforcements reached Burma. Under pressure of events in the Pacific, Terauchi even withdrew some units from Burma during the campaign.[8]
Although the Allies expected that the Japanese would fight as far forward as possible, on the Chindwin, Kimura recognised that most of the Japanese units in Burma were weakened by heavy casualties during the previous year and were short of equipment. To avoid fighting at a disadvantage on the Chindwin or in the Shwebo plain between the Chindwin and Irrawaddy River where the terrain provided comparatively few obstacles to the British and Indian armoured and motorised units, he withdrew Fifteenth Army behind the Irrawaddy, which they would defend against the British Fourteenth Army (Operation BAN). The Twenty-Eighth Army was to continue to defend the Arakan and lower Irrawaddy valley (Operation KAN), while Thirty-Third Army would attempt to prevent the completion of the new road link between India and China by defending the cities of Bhamo and Lashio and mounting guerilla raids (Operation DAN).[9]
Burma edit
Another factor which was to become significant during the campaign was the changing attitude of the Burmese population. During the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, many of the majority Bamar population had actively aided the Japanese Army. Although the Japanese had established a nominally independent Burmese government (the State of Burma) under Ba Maw and formed a Burma National Army under Aung San, they remained in effective control of the country. Their strict control, along with wartime privations, turned the Burmese against them.
Aung San had sought an alliance with Thakin Soe, who was leading a Communist insurgency in southern Arakan, as early as 1943. They formed the Anti-Fascist Organisation and intended turning against the Japanese at some stage but Thakin Soe dissuaded Aung San from openly rebelling until Allied forces had established permanent footholds in Burma. In early 1945, Aung San sought the aid of the Allied liaison organisation Force 136, which was already aiding resistance movements among the minority Karen population. Although there was some debate among the Allies, Mountbatten eventually decided that Aung San should be supported. Force 136 was now to abet the defection of the entire Burma National Army to the Allies.[10]
Indian National Army edit
Another force nominally under Japanese control was the Indian National Army, a force mainly composed of former prisoners of war and volunteers from the Indian expatriate communities in British Malaya and Burma. Its commander in chief was Subhas Chandra Bose. During the 1945 campaign, some INA units fought stoutly against the Allies but others deserted or capitulated readily. The Japanese had alienated many of the INA by giving them low priority for equipment and supplies, or by using them as labourers and carriers rather than as fighting troops. Their morale was also affected in some units by the obvious turn of fortune against the Japanese.[11]
Campaign edit
Southern front edit
The Japanese Twenty-eighth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Shozo Sakurai, defended the coastal Arakan region and the lower Irrawaddy valley. The 54th Division defended the Mayu Peninsula and Kaladan River valley, the 55th Division garrisoned several ports and part of southern Burma (with a regiment on Mount Popa in Central Burma) and the 72nd Independent Mixed Brigade was stationed around the oilfields at Yenangyaung on the Irrawaddy.[12]
The Allied forces in Arakan were controlled by the XV Indian Corps under Lieutenant General Philip Christison. The Corps' first major objective was Akyab Island, at the end of the Mayu Peninsula. The island held a port and an important airfield which the Allies planned to use as a base from which to deliver supplies by air to the troops in Central Burma. An attempt to capture the island in 1943 had been defeated, a second attempt in early 1944 gained some ground but was abandoned because of monsoon rains and lack of resources.
As the monsoon ended in late 1944, XV Corps resumed the advance on Akyab for the third year in succession. The 25th Indian Division advanced on Foul Point and Rathedaung at the end of the Mayu Peninsula, being supplied by landing craft over beaches to avoid the risk of Japanese attacks against their lines of communication. The 82nd (West Africa) Division cleared the valley of the Kalapanzin River before crossing a mountain range into the Kaladan River valley, while the 81st (West Africa) Division advanced down the Kaladan River, repeating the move it had made in early 1944. The two African divisions converged on Myohaung near the mouth of the Kaladan River, cutting the supply lines of the Japanese troops in the Mayu Peninsula. The Japanese evacuated Akyab Island on 31 December 1944. It was occupied by XV Corps without resistance two days later.
The 82nd Division next attacked south along the coastal plain, while the 25th Indian Division, with 3 Commando Brigade under command, made amphibious landings further south to catch the Japanese in a pincer movement. First ashore was 42 Commando on the south-eastern face of the Myebon Peninsula on 12 January 1945. Over the next few days the commandos and a brigade of 25th Division cleared the peninsula and denied the Japanese the use of the many waterways along the Arakan coast.
On 22 January, 3 Commando Brigade landed on the beaches at Daingbon Chaung led this time by No. 1 Commando. Having secured the beaches they moved inland and became involved in very heavy fighting with the Japanese. The following night a brigade of the 25th Division was landed in support. The fighting around the beachhead involved hand-to-hand fighting as the Japanese realised the danger of encirclement and threw all their available troops into the fight. The commandos and Indian troops managed to turn the tide of the battle and take the village of Kangaw only on 29 January. Meanwhile, the forces on the Myebon Peninsula linked up with the 82nd Division fighting its way overland towards Kangaw. Caught between the 82nd Division and the forces already in Kangaw, the Japanese were forced to scatter, leaving behind thousands of dead and most of their heavy equipment.
With the coastal area secured, the Allies were free to build airbases which could be supplied by sea on the two offshore islands, Ramree Island and Cheduba Island. Cheduba, the smaller of the two islands, had no Japanese garrison but the Battle of Ramree Island lasted for six weeks after the initial landings on 21 January by the 26th Indian Division before the survivors of the small but tenacious Japanese garrison withdrew from the island,[13][14] suffering heavy casualties to disease, starvation, Allied Motor Launches and other naval vessels and (allegedly) crocodiles.[15]
Following these actions, XV Corps' operations were curtailed to release transport aircraft to support Fourteenth Army. The 81st Division and the 50th Indian Tank Brigade were withdrawn to India. Outflanking moves by the 82nd Division and 26th Indian Division through the hills around An and Taungup were abandoned or cancelled and the Corps' divisions were withdrawn to the coast. The Japanese successfully defended the port of Taungup and the An and Taungup passes across the Arakan hills until very late in the campaign.
Northern front edit
The Japanese Thirty-third Army, led by Lieutenant General Masaki Honda, defended Northern Burma against attacks from both Northern India and the Chinese province of Yunnan. The 18th Division faced the American and Chinese Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC) under Lieutenant General Daniel Isom Sultan advancing south from Myitkyina and Mogaung which the Allies had secured in 1944, while the 56th Division faced the large Chinese Yunnan armies led by Wei Lihuang.
Although Thirty-third Army had been forced to relinquish most of the reinforcements it had received the previous year, the operations of the NCAC were limited from late 1944 onwards as many of its troops were withdrawn by air to face Japanese attacks in China. In Operation Grubworm, the Chinese 14th and 22nd divisions were flown via Myitkyina to defend the airfields around Kunming, vital to the airlift of aid to China, nicknamed The Hump. Nevertheless, the command resumed its advance.
On the right flank of the command, the British 36th Division, which had been assigned to the command in July 1944 to replace the Chindits, advanced south down the "Railway Valley" from Mogaung to Indaw. It made contact with the 19th Indian Division near Indaw on 10 December 1944 and Fourteenth Army and NCAC now had a continuous front. On Sultan's left, the Chinese New First Army, commanded by Sun Li-jen and consisting of the 30th Division and 38th Division, advanced from Myitkyina to Bhamo. The Japanese resisted for several weeks but Bhamo fell on 15 December. The Chinese New Sixth Army, commanded by Liao Yaoxiang and consisting of the 50th Division, infiltrated through the difficult terrain between these two wings to threaten the Japanese lines of communication.
The American 5334th Composite Unit, known as the "Mars Brigade", had replaced Merrill's Marauders. The unit was commanded by Brigadier General J. P. Willey and consisted of the 475th United States Infantry Regiment, the 124th United States Cavalry Regiment and the elite Chinese 1st Regiment. They attempted to cut the Burma Road behind the Japanese 56th Division. They failed to isolate the Japanese division but hastened its retreat.[16]
Sun Li-Jen's New First Army made contact with Wei Lihuang's armies advancing from Yunnan near Hsipaw on 21 January 1945 and the Ledo road could finally be completed. The first truck convoy from India arrived in Kunming on 4 February[17] but by this point in the war the value of the Ledo road was uncertain, as it would not now affect the military situation in China.
To the annoyance of the British and Americans, Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek ordered Sultan to halt his advance at Lashio, which was captured on 7 March. The British and Americans generally refused to understand that Chiang had to balance the needs of China as a whole against fighting the Japanese in a British colony.[citation needed] The Japanese had already withdrawn the 18th Division from the northern front, to face the Fourteenth Army in central Burma. On 12 March, the Thirty-third Army HQ was also dispatched there, leaving only the 56th Division to hold the northern front.[18] This division was also withdrawn in late March and early April.
From 1 April, NCAC's operations stopped and its units returned to China. The British 36th Division moved to Mandalay, which had been captured in March and was subsequently withdrawn to India. A US-led guerrilla force, OSS Detachment 101, took over the military responsibilities of NCAC,[17] while British civil affairs and other units such as the Civil Affairs Service (Burma) stepped in to take over its other responsibilities. Northern Burma was partitioned into Line-of-Communication areas by the military authorities.
Central front edit
The Japanese Fifteenth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Shihachi Katamura, held the central part of the front. The army was falling back behind the Irrawaddy, deploying rearguards to delay the Allied advance. A bridgehead was retained in the Sagaing hills.
The Fifteenth Army consisted of the 15th Division, 31st Division and the 33rd Division. The 53rd Division provided a reserve, although it was controlled directly by the Burma Area Army. During the campaign, the headquarters of the Japanese Thirty-third Army and parts of the 2nd Division, 18th Division and 49th Divisions reinforced the forces on the central part of the front.
The British Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim made the main Allied thrust, codenamed Operation Capital, into central Burma. It consisted of IV Corps under Lieutenant General Frank Messervy and XXXIII Corps under Lieutenant General Montagu Stopford, together controlling six infantry divisions, two armoured brigades and three independent infantry brigades. The main constraint on the number of forces the Fourteenth Army could deploy was supply. A carefully designed system involving large amounts of air transport was introduced and major construction projects were undertaken to improve the land route from India into Burma and make use of river transport.
Units of both corps of the Fourteenth Army crossed the Chindwin and attacked into the Shwebo plain, IV Corps on the left and XXXIII Corps on the right. After a few days, when it was realised that the Japanese had fallen back behind the Irrawaddy River, the plan was hastily changed. Now, only XXXIII Corps was to continue the attack into the Shwebo Plain, reinforced by the one division of IV Corps which had been committed across the Chindwin, while the main body of IV Corps was switched to the right flank, changing its axis of advance to the Gangaw Valley west of the Chindwin. It aimed to cross the Irrawaddy close to Pakokku and then capture the main Japanese line of communication centre of Meiktila. Diversionary measures (such as dummy radio traffic) were made to persuade the Japanese that both corps were still aimed at Mandalay. The new plan was a success. Allied air superiority and the thin Japanese presence on the ground meant that the Japanese were unaware of the strength of the force moving on Pakokku.
During January and February, the XXXIII Corps (consisting of the British 2nd Division, 19th Indian Division, 20th Indian Division, 268th Indian Brigade and the 254th Indian Tank Brigade) cleared the Shwebo plain and established bridgeheads over the Irrawaddy River near Mandalay. There was heavy fighting, which attracted Japanese reserves and fixed their attention. Late in February, the 7th Indian Division, leading IV Corps, seized crossings at Nyaungu and Pagan near Pakokku. While the 28th (East Africa) Infantry Brigade maintained diversionary pressure against Yenangyaung on the west bank of the river, the 17th Indian Division and the 255th Indian Armoured brigade crossed through 7th Indian Division's bridgeheads and began advancing to Meiktila.
Meiktila edit
In the dry season, central Burma is largely an open plain with sandy soil and there is also a good road network. The mechanised 17th Indian Division and the armoured brigade could move rapidly and unhindered in this open terrain, apparently taking the staffs at the various Japanese headquarters by surprise with this blitzkrieg manoeuvre. Reinforced by the third brigade of the 17th Indian Division which flew in to a captured airstrip, they struck Meiktila on 1 March and captured it in four days, despite resistance to the last man. In an oft-recounted incident, some Japanese soldiers crouched in trenches with aircraft bombs, with orders to detonate them when an enemy tank loomed over the trench.
Japanese reinforcements arrived too late to relieve the garrison but they besieged the town in an attempt to recapture it and destroy the 17th Indian Division. Although eight Japanese regiments were eventually involved, they were mostly weak in numbers and drawn from five divisions, so their efforts were not coordinated. The Japanese Thirty-third Army HQ (re-titled The Army of the Decisive Battle) was assigned to take command in this vital sector but was unable to establish proper control.[18] The 17th Indian Division had been reinforced by a brigade of the 5th Indian Division landed by air. British tank-infantry forces sallied out of Meiktila to break up Japanese concentrations and by the end of the month the Japanese had suffered heavy casualties and had lost most of their artillery, their chief anti-tank weapon. The Japanese broke off the attack and retreated to Pyawbwe.
While the capture and siege of Meiktila took place, the 7th Indian Division, reinforced by a mechanised brigade of the 5th Indian Division, secured the Irrawaddy bridgehead, captured the important river port at Myingyan and began clearing the lines of communication to Meiktila.
Mandalay edit
While the Japanese were distracted by events at Meiktila, XXXIII Corps had renewed its attack on Mandalay. It fell to the 19th Indian Division on 20 March, though the Japanese held the former citadel, which the British called Fort Dufferin, for another week. Many of the historically and culturally significant areas of Mandalay, including the old royal palace, were burned to the ground. A great deal was lost by the Japanese choice to make a last stand in the city itself. The other divisions of XXXIII Corps simultaneously attacked from their bridgeheads across the Irrawaddy. The Japanese Fifteenth Army was reduced to small detachments and parties of stragglers making their way south, or east into the Shan States. With the fall of Mandalay (and of Maymyo to its east), the Japanese communications to the front in the north of Burma were cut and the Allied road link between India and China was therefore finally secured, though far too late to affect the course of the war in China.
The fall of Mandalay also precipitated the change of sides by the Burma National Army and open rebellion against the Japanese by other underground movements belonging to the Anti-Fascist Organisation.[19] In the last week of March, Aung San, commander-in-chief of the Burma National Army, appeared in public in Burmese native dress instead of Japanese uniform.[20] Shortly afterwards, most of the Burma National Army paraded in Rangoon and then marched out of the city as if going to the front in Central Burma. They then rebelled against the Japanese on 27 March.[21]
Race for Rangoon edit
Though the Allied force had advanced successfully into central Burma, it was vital to capture the port of Rangoon before the monsoon rains began. The temporarily upgraded overland routes from India would disintegrate under heavy rain, which would also curtail flying and reduce the amount of supplies which could be delivered by air. Furthermore, South East Asia Command had been notified that many of the American transport aircraft allocated to the theatre would be withdrawn in June at the latest. The use of Rangoon would be necessary to meet the needs of the large army force and (as importantly) the food needs of the civilian population in the areas liberated.
The British 2nd Division and British 36th Division, both of which were understrength and could not readily be reinforced, were withdrawn to India to reduce the demand for supplies. (The 36th Division also exchanged the Indian battalions in one of its brigades for the depleted British battalions in the 20th Indian Division). The Indian XXXIII Corps, consisting of the 7th Indian Division and 20th Indian Division, mounted the Fourteenth Army's secondary drive down the Irrawaddy River valley, against the Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army. The IV Corps, of the 5th, 17th and 19th Indian divisions, made the main attack down the Sittang River valley.
The 17th Indian Division and 255th Armoured Brigade began the IV Corps advance on 6 April by striking from all sides at the delaying position held by the remnants of the Japanese Thirty-third Army at Pyawbwe, while a flanking column (nicknamed "Claudcol") of tanks and mechanised infantry cut the main road behind them and attacked their rear.[22] This column was initially delayed by the remnants of the Japanese 49th Division defending a village but bypassed them to defeat the remnants of the Japanese 53rd Division and destroy the last tanks remaining to the Japanese 14th Tank regiment. As they then turned north against the town of Pyawbwe itself, they attacked Lieutenant General Honda's headquarters but were not aware of the presence of an army headquarters and broke off to capture the town instead.[23]
From this point, the advance down the main road to Rangoon faced little organised opposition. At Pyinmana, the town and the bridge were seized on 19 April before the Japanese could organise their defence. The Japanese Thirty-third Army headquarters was present in Pyinmana. From reports by agents, the Allies were aware this time of Honda's presence and his headquarters was attacked by tanks and aircraft. Lieutenant-General Honda and his staff escaped at night on foot but they now had little means of controlling the remnants of their formations.[24]
Some units of the Japanese Fifteenth Army had reorganised in the Shan States and were reinforced by the Japanese 56th Division, which had been transferred from the northern front. They were ordered to move to Toungoo to block the road to Rangoon but a general uprising by Karen guerrillas who had been organised and equipped by Force 136 delayed them long enough for the 5th Indian Division to reach the town first on 23 April. The Japanese briefly recaptured Toungoo once the 5th Indian Division had passed through but the 19th Indian Division, which was following up the leading units of IV Corps, captured the town again and slowly drove the Japanese back towards Mawchi to the east.[25]
The 17th Indian Division resumed the lead of the advance and met a Japanese blocking force north of Pegu, 40 miles (64 km) north of Rangoon, on 25 April. The various line of communication troops, naval personnel and even Japanese civilians in Rangoon had been formed into the Japanese 105 Independent Mixed Brigade. This scratch formation used anti-tank mines improvised from aircraft bombs, anti-aircraft guns and suicide attacks with pole charges to delay the 17th Indian Division and then defended Pegu until 30 April, when it withdrew into the hills west of Pegu. The monsoon broke as the division resumed its advance on Rangoon and floods slowed the division.
Operation Dracula edit
In the original conception of the plan to re-take Burma, it had been intended that the XV Indian Corps would make an amphibious assault codenamed Operation Dracula on Rangoon long before Fourteenth Army reached the capital, in order to ease supply problems. Lack of resources meant that Dracula was postponed and the operation was subsequently dropped in favour of a planned assault on Phuket Island off the Kra Isthmus.
Slim feared that the Japanese would defend Rangoon to the last man through the monsoon, which would put the Fourteenth Army in a disastrous supply situation. In late March, he therefore asked for Dracula to be reinstated at short notice. However, Kimura had ordered Rangoon to be evacuated, starting on 22 April. Many troops were evacuated by sea, although British destroyers claimed several ships. Kimura's own HQ and the establishments of Ba Maw and Subhas Bose left by land, covered by the action of 105 Mixed Brigade at Pegu and proceeded to Moulmein.
On 1 May, a Gurkha parachute battalion was dropped on Elephant Point and cleared Japanese coastal defence batteries at the mouth of the Rangoon River. The 26th Indian Division started to land the next day as the monsoon began and took over Rangoon, which had seen an orgy of looting and lawlessness since the Japanese had left. The leading troops of the 17th and 26th Indian divisions met at Hlegu, 28 miles (45 km) north of Rangoon, on 6 May.
Final operations edit
Following the capture of Rangoon, a new Twelfth Army headquarters, commanded by Lieutenant General Stopford, was created from the XXXIII Indian Corps HQ to take control of the allied formations which were to remain in Burma, including IV Corps.
The remnants of the Japanese Burma Area Army remained in control of Tenasserim province. The Japanese Twenty-eighth Army, which had withdrawn from Arakan and unsuccessfully resisted XXXIII Corps in the Irrawaddy valley, and the 105 Independent Brigade, were cut off in the Pegu Yomas, a range of low jungle-covered hills between the Irrawaddy and Sittang rivers. They planned to break out and rejoin Burma Area Army. To cover this break-out, Kimura ordered Honda's Thirty-third Army to mount a diversionary offensive across the Sittang, although the entire army could muster the strength of barely a regiment. On 3 July, Honda's troops attacked British positions in the "Sittang Bend". On 10 July, after a battle for country which was almost entirely under chest-high water, both the Japanese and the 89th Indian Brigade withdrew.
Honda, pressed by Kimura and Kimura's chief of staff, Tanaka, had attacked too early. Sakurai's Twenty-eighth Army was not ready to start the break-out until 17 July. The break-out was a disaster. The British had captured the Japanese plans from an officer killed making a final reconnaissance,[26] and had placed ambushes or artillery concentrations on the routes they were to use. Hundreds of men drowned trying to cross the swollen Sittang on improvised bamboo floats and rafts. Burmese guerrillas and bandits killed stragglers east of the river. The break-out cost the Japanese nearly 10,000 men, half the strength of Twenty-eighth Army. Some units of 105 Independent Brigade were almost entirely wiped out.[27] British and Indian casualties were minimal.
Aftermath edit
Slim had been promoted to command Allied Land Forces South East Asia (the army component of South East Asia Command). He was replaced at Fourteenth Army by Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey. Fourteenth Army and XV Corps HQs had returned to India to plan the next stage of the campaign to re-take Southeast Asia. A new corps, the XXXIV Corps under Lieutenant-General Ouvry Lindfield Roberts, was raised and assigned to Fourteenth Army.
The next intended operation was to be an amphibious assault on the western coast of Malaya, codenamed Operation Zipper. The dropping of the atomic bombs forestalled Zipper but the operation was undertaken post-war as the quickest way of getting occupation troops into Malaya.
Maps edit
Third Burma campaign, October 1943 – May 1944
Third Burma campaign, June 1944 – April 1945
Third Burma campaign, April–May 1945
Notes edit
- ^ Not counting casualties fighting Americans and Chinese
Footnotes edit
- ^ Whelpton, John (2005). A History of Nepal (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-52180026-6.
- ^ Singh, S. B. (1992). "Nepal and the World Warii". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 53: 580–585. JSTOR 44142873.
- ^ The Burma Boy, Al Jazeera Documentary, Barnaby Phillips follows the life of one of the forgotten heroes of World War II, Al Jazeera Correspondent Last Modified: 22 July 2012 07:21,
- ^ "Survey of Allied tank casualties in World War II", Technical Memorandum ORO-T-117, Department of the Army, Washington D.C.,Table 1.
- ^ Video: Campaign in Burma, 1944/04/24 (1944). Universal Newsreel. 1944. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
- ^ Slim 1956, pp. 368–369.
- ^ Slim 1956, p. 368.
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 391.
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 392.
- ^ Bayly & Harper 2005, pp. 429–432
- ^ Bayly & Harper 2005, pp. 400–402
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 456.
- ^ Slim 1956, pp. 461–462
- ^ "No 5 Commando". Combined Operations. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
- ^ McLynn 2011, pp. 13–15, 459.
- ^ "The U.S. Army campaigns of World War II: Central burma". p. 7. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ a b Allen 2005, p. 455.
- ^ a b Allen 2005, p. 450.
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 573.
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 582.
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 584.
- ^ Allen 2005, p. 461.
- ^ Allen 2005, pp. 465–466.
- ^ Allen 2005, pp. 468–471.
- ^ Masters 1961, pp. 315–318.
- ^ Allen 2005, pp. 506–507.
- ^ Allen 2005, pp. 524–525.
References edit
- Allen, Louis (2005) [1984]. Burma: The longest War. Dent Publishing. ISBN 0-460-02474-4.
- Bayly, Christopher; Harper, Tim (2005). Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-029331-0.
- McLynn, Frank (2011). The Burma Campaign: Disaster Into Triumph, 1942–45. Yale Library of Military History. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-17162-4.
- Masters, John (1961). The Road Past Mandalay: A Personal Narrative. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC 922224518.
- Slim, William (1956). Defeat Into Victory: An Account of the Burma campaign, 1942–45 with Maps and a Portrait. London: Cassell. OCLC 843081328.
Further reading edit
- Fraser, George MacDonald (1993). Quartered Safe Out Here. London: Harvill. ISBN 978-0-00-710593-9.
- Hickey, Michael (1992). The Unforgettable Army. Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount. ISBN 1-873376-10-3.
- Hodsun, J. L. (1943). War in the Sun. London: Victor Gollancz. OCLC 222241837.
- Hogan, David W. (1992). India-Burma. The US Army Campaigns of World War II. CMH Pub 72-5. Washington: United States Army Center of Military History. OCLC 30476399. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2010.
- Jackson, Ashley (2006). The British Empire and the Second World War. London: Hambledon Continuum. ISBN 978-1-85285-517-8.
- Keegan, John, ed. (1991). Churchill's Generals. London: Cassell Military. ISBN 0-304-36712-5.
- "Operations in Burma from 12 November 1944 to 15 August 1945, official despatch by Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese". The London Gazette (Supplement). No. 39195. 6 April 1951. pp. 1881–1963.
- Latimer, Jon (2004). Burma: The Forgotten War. London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-6576-2.
- MacGarrigle, George L. (2000). Central Burma 29 January – 15 July 1945. The US Army Campaigns of World War II. CMH Pub 72-37. Washington, DC: United States Army Center of Military History. OCLC 835432028. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2010.
- Moser, Don (1978). World War II: China-Burma-India. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books. ISBN 978-0-8094-2484-9.
- Newell, Clayton R. (1995). Burma 1942. The US Army Campaigns of World War II. CMH Pub 72-21. Washington, DC: United States Army Center of Military History. ISBN 978-0-16-042086-3.
- Webster, Donovan (2003). The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-11740-5.
- Woodburn Kirby, Major-General S. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO 1958]. Butler, Sir James (ed.). The War Against Japan: India's Most Dangerous Hour. History of the Second World War. United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. II (facsimile ed.). Uckfield: Imperial War Museum and Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-84574-061-0.
- Woodburn Kirby, Major-General S. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO 1961]. Butler, Sir James (ed.). The War Against Japan: The Decisive Battles. History of the Second World War. United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. III (facsimile ed.). Uckfield: Imperial War Museum and Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-84574-061-0.
- Woodburn Kirby, S. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO 1968]. Butler, Sir James (ed.). The War Against Japan: The Reconquest of Burma. History of the Second World War. United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. IV (facsimile ed.). Uckfield: Imperial War Museum and Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-84574-063-4.
External links edit
- Burma Star Association
- national-army-museum.ac.uk History of the British Army: Far East, 1941–45
- Imperial War Museum London Archived 3 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine Burma Summary
- Royal Engineers Museum Engineers in the Burma Campaigns
- Royal Engineers Museum Engineers with the Chindits
- Canadian War Museum: Newspaper Articles on the Burma Campaigns, 1941–1945
- World War II animated campaign maps
- List of Regimental Battle Honours in the Burma Campaign (1942–1945) – Also some useful links


text:
Shane Warne has been banned for one match and fined for his nasty clash with Marlon Samuels in yesterday's Big Bash Melbourne derby.
In unprecedented scenes at the MCG, the Melbourne Stars captain engaged in a verbal war of words with Samuels, before the former Australian spinner threw the ball into the West Indian's midriff in the act of returning it to the wicketkeeper.
That prompted Samuels to hurl his bat in Warne's direction, sparking more angry exchanges as the umpires attempted to calm matters in a match that was eventually won by the Renegades by nine wickets.
Warne, whose side face the Sydney Thunder this week looking for a place in the semi-finals, admitted he went "too far" last night and that he accepted the punishment.
He tweeted: "I have decided to accept my penalty of a 1 match ban! Let's hope the boys can win tomorrow & we can make the semi finals ... Thanks for support guys, sport can be an emotional & at times very passionate too. I went to far in trying to stand up for the team !!"
However, he also said he felt he had been harshly treated.
He tweeted: "I'm disappointed at some of my actions last night as captain & as a player, but I'm also very disappointed at the severe penalty I received!"
Both Warne and Samuels were charged following the incident, although Samuels did not face the charges this morning as he suffered a serious knock to his eye after top-edging a delivery from Lasith Malinga into his face.
Warne, though, was suspended for breaching Cricket Australia code of behaviour rule 2.2, which states that a player not "engage in inappropriate and deliberate physical contact with other players or officials".
Under this rule, Warne was fined AU$3,000 (Dh11,500) and suspended for Tuesday night's clash with the Sydney Thunder.
The Stars captain was fined a further AU$1,000 for using obscene language towards Samuels, and hit with another AU$500 fine under rule 1.2 which addresses showing dissent at an umpire's decision.
Warne was initially charged under rule 2.1, which involves showing "serious dissent" at decisions, but this charge was downgraded on today.
However, the charge of "throwing a ball at a player in a dangerous or inappropriate manner" was dismissed.
Samuels has also been charged with two breaches of the CA code of behaviour for "engaging in inappropriate and deliberate physical contact with other players or officials" and also under rule 6, which states "players and officials must not at any time engage in behaviour unbecoming to a representative player or official that could (a) bring them or the game of cricket into disrepute or (b) be harmful to the interests of cricket".
Regardless of the charges, Samuels' participation in the Big Bash League may be over for this summer as the Renegades wait for swelling around his eye to subside to determine the extent of his injury.
With some reports suggesting Samuels has a broken eye socket, the Renegades are already looking at bringing in a replacement for the West Indian.
"Marlon is recovering in the team hotel and will be taking time off to care for his injury," said Renegades coach Simon Helmot.
"We're now waiting for the swelling around his eye to subside before determining the full extent of the blow.
"We are also assessing what, if anything, this means in terms of squad composition for the remainder of the tournament and will take action to source an international replacement if necessary.
"You've got to feel for Marlon and we're continuing to do everything we can as a team to support him during his recovery."
Follow us
[ @SprtNationalUAE ]

subset: commoncrawl


text:
(visited by Ken Warne and Neil Warne)
23-May-2004 -- Whilst visiting Murchison Settlement, which is 300 km by road north east of Geraldton, I took the opportunity to arrange a visit to the 26°S 116°E confluence.
After discussing the possibility with my brother Neil, who is a resident of the Murchison Settlement and is familiar with the area, we decided that a successful visit could be easily achieved.
In preparation, we first approached Daniel and Marie of Byro Station and after explaining the project obtained permission to traverse their station to reach the confluence.
Equipped with a GPS borrowed from Murchison resident Dirk Sellenger we left Murchison Settlement at 0910 on Sunday 23 May 2004 travelling north on the Carnarvon to Mullewa Road 103 km to Byro Station.
When we called at the Byro Station Homestead to seek advice on which station tracks could be used to take us to within walking distance of the confluence, we found Daniel and Marie to be out but they had thoughtfully left a "mud map" of the area hanging on the door indicating the tracks we should follow.
After leaving Byro we returned to the Carnarvon – Mullewa Road stopping to mark the position of the 26th parallel which is the boundary of the South West and North West Land Divisions of Western Australia. This little task was done on behalf of the Shire of Murchison so that an appropriate sign could be erected to indicate the division line.
A short distance further north we turned west off the main road travelling for some distance before turning south and then east at a cross road, which appeared to have once been the intersection of two important roads linking stations. We proceeded towards Earlier Hill until our GPS indicated that we were 2.19 km due north of the confluence. At this point we had travelled 147.3 km from Murchison Settlement.
After morning tea we marked the position of our vehicle and set off at 1150 to walk south to the confluence through Mulga country typical of the Murchison pastoral area arriving at the confluence at 1225.
This confluence is located near the southern side of Yarra Yarra Creek, a wide multi channelled dry creek which flows east to west at the confluence point. The creek system is marked by scattered Eucalyptus River Gums. Debris caught against the vegetation in the creek channels indicates a very strong flow during heavy rain events.
The width of the creek channel system in the area is approximately 220 metres and the altitude shown on the GPS at the confluence was 293 metres.
After taking our photographs we left the confluence point at 1255 arriving back at our vehicle at 1335 for a celebratory drink and lunch.


text:
As a [ person ]Unfortunately, I don't believe that it creates the accountability that it attempts to show. For example, a story card could be:
I would like to [ action ]
so that [ reason for action ]
As a script authorThe above story card would be a valid story card; however, it doesn't tell me who introduced this story card. What if the card was introduced by a stakeholder who will actually never play the role of script author. Perhaps it was created in anticipation of an auditing requirement that has yet to be defined. In the end, the functionality may end up YAGNI.
I'd like to see a diff of current scripts against previous scripts
so that I can verify alterations
Ownership can be very important when stakeholders need to collaborate on determining scope. Therefore, I prefer explicitly naming the owner of the card.
Jay would like to see a diff of current scripts against previous scripts so that he can verify alterations.Using this format also ensures that only customers are creating requirements.
For more information on Story Cards check out the c2 wiki.


text:
Smithsonian researchers working in Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine have unearthed the first megafossil evidence of a neotropical rainforest. Titanoboa, the world's biggest snake, lived in this forest 58 million years ago at temperatures 3-5 C warmer than in rainforests today, indicating that rainforests flourished during warm periods.
"Modern neotropical rainforests, with their palms and spectacular flowering-plant diversity, seem to have come into existence in the Paleocene epoch, shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago," said Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "Pollen evidence tells us that forests before the mass extinction were quite different from our fossil rainforest at Cerrejón. We find new plant families, large, smooth-margined leaves and a three-tiered structure of forest floor, understory shrubs and high canopy."
Historically, good rock exposures and concentrated efforts by paleontologists to understand the evolution of neotropical rainforests—one of the most awe-inspiring assemblages of plant and animal life on the planet—have been lacking. "The Cerrejón mining operation is the first clear window we have to see back in time to the Paleocene, when the neotropical rainforest was first developing," said Scott Wing, a paleontologist from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Some of the more than 2,000 fossil leaves, including the compound leaves and pods of plants in the bean family and leaves of the hibiscus family are among the oldest, reliable evidence of these groups. This was the first time that the plant families Araceae, Arecaceae, Fabaceae, Lauraceae, Malvaceae and Menispermaceae, which are still among the most common neotropical rainforest families, all occurred together.
Many newcomers to modern rainforests remark that the leaves all look the same, a reasonable observation given that most have smooth margins and long "drip-tips" thought to prevent water from accumulating on the leaf surface.
S. Joseph Wright, senior scientist at STRI, has noted that all of the areas in the world today with average yearly temperatures greater than 28 C are too dry to support tropical rainforests. If tropical temperatures increase by 3 C by the end of this century as predicted in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "We're going to have a novel climate where it is very hot and very wet. How tropical forest species will respond to this novel climate, we don't know," said Wright.
Based on leaf shape and the size of the cold-blooded Titanoboa, Cerrejón rainforest existed at temperatures up to 30-32 C and rainfall averages exceeded 2500 mm per year.
But Titanoboa's rainforest was not as diverse as modern rainforests. Comparison of the diversity of this fossil flora to modern Amazon forest diversity and to the diversity of pollen from other Paleocene rainforests revealed that there are fewer species at Cerrejón than one would expect. Insect-feeding damage on leaves indicated that they could have been eaten by herbivores with a very general diet rather than insects specific to certain host plants.
"We were very surprised by the low plant diversity of this rainforest. Either we are looking at a new type of plant community that still hadn't had time to diversify, or this forest was still recovering from the events that caused the mass extinction 65 million years ago," said Wing. "Our next steps are to collect and analyze more sites of the same age from elsewhere in Colombia to see if the patterns at Cerrejón hold, and study additional sites that bracket the Cretaceous mass extinction, in order to really understand how the phenomenal interactions that typify modern rainforests came to be."
This work is scheduled to be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Oct. 12-16.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page:


text:
Myspace Layout Generator |
You can upload and use your own contact table at your own myspace layout generated by us!!! And soon you will be able to save your generated layouts to your member panel. Then this will enable you to come back later and re-edit your layout, or use the one you like at your profile with click of a button... This Free Myspace Layout Generatoris the best generator tool on the net with live preview! Try our free myspace layout generator now, you'll love it! |
This skinny layout generator provides you the most enjoyable way to generate myspace layout codes. You can make your own layouts very easily with this Free Myspace Layout Generatorjust in seconds! Use color sliders to make your own transparent myspace backgrounds, text, transparent myspace tables and border colors, apply any image as a background picture, use any type of font with any size you like, and even adjust transparency to the tables in order to make your transparent myspace layouts! |


text:
Kokum Beetroot Paste
We are leading producer and exporter of Kokum Beetroot Paste in various pack for food Industries/hotels, restaurants and caterings (horeca). Packaging accessible in 1kg retort/frozen pocket also mass packing of 5-200 kg. This paste is prepared from fresh ingredients. Offered paste/base are extensively respected by the customers for their characteristic flavor, rich dietary benefit, longer shelf life, and high caliber. Aside from this, we are offering the offered products at the reasonable price range to cater the individual requirements in best possible way.
Being an exceptionally compelling and renowned company, we are effectively occupied with introducing the total variety of Kokum Beetroot Paste . The offered paste is made by the utilization of best quality raw material at our main processing unit. We ensure to deliver these products at customer end within the promised time period. In addition to this, We also pack the all paste and gravy base in pvt labelling.
To give our customer high quality product and services, we have a diligent team of professionals which tests each of our products minutely on various quality standards. All product are enriched with essential nutrients that are required in a balanced food. We Pack in Retort Pouch, PP Pouch, Jar, Bucket, Drum as per requirements.
Key Point
- Prepared by best indian chefs
- Home cook quality
- For multiple applications
- Saves time and resources
- Safe packing
- This product must be cooked/process.
- No artificial colors, flavors or preservatives
- Suitable for vegetarians
- Ideal for instant cooking/processing
Packing size | 1kg-3kg |
Food Type | Culinary Paste/Sauce |
Delivery Time | 6 to 7 days |
Supply Ability | In tons each week |
Quality | A+ Premium |
Nearest Port | JNPT/Nhava, Mundra. |
Packaging | 12 Pouch/Carton |
Quality | FSSAI, ISO, FSMS |
Produce of | Made in India |
We are manufacturer / suppliers of mint paste, spinach puree, kokum beetroot paste, chickpeas paste, tamarind paste, date paste, carrot paste, pumpkin paste, cashewnut paste , fried cashewnut paste , boiled onion paste, sautéed onion paste, fried onion paste, red gravy base, yellow gravy base, white gravy base, white Jain gravy base, brown gravy base, brown paste,red chili garlic paste, green chili paste, green chili garlic, lime ginger green chili paste, coriander paste ,crushed tomato, tomato puree, chicken tandoori marinades, chicken tikka marinades, pizza pasta sauce, aseptic fruit pulp, aseptic fruit concentrate, sulphited fruit pulp, paste, frozen fruit pulp, iqf fruits and vegetables, spices, dehydrated food product, spray dried food product, seasoning and blends, horeca food products, canned food products, frozen and iqf food products, instant cooking paste base and food ingredients, all-purpose gravy base, instant biryani paste, makhani gravy base, kadhai gravy base, kolhapuri gravy base , butter chicken base, korma paste, sautéed onion with ginger & garlic, sautéed onion with tomato, ginger & garlic, sautéed diced onion , onion tomato masala, sambar base, misal base, ginger paste , garlic paste, ginger garlic paste, red chili paste.


text:
Scott Marshall's dramedy Keeping Up with the Steins details the sad dilemma of bar mitzvah escalation. Once the Steins of Brentwood throw a Titanic-themed bar mitzvah, complete with iceberg, ship, and boychik on bow yelping, "Today I am king of the Torah!", the Fiedlers discover they'll have to work hard to...y'know.
Power-agent Adam Fiedler (Jeremy Piven) begins plotting a baseball-themed extravaganza without much consulting son Benjamin (Daryl Sabara of Spy Kids) or tending to the needs of his wife (Jami Gertz). Meanwhile, Ben's more interested in affecting a reunion between his dad and grandpa Irwin, played by the director's always amusing father, Garry Marshall. Irwin's a desert hippie married to a much-younger flower child (Daryl Hannah), two character types whose dramatic potential is long-since overdrawn.
Doris Roberts turns up as Irwin's ex-wife, a dead ringer for her long-running TV character Marie Barone ("I'm not saying anything, but I'm thinking something"). Richard Benjamin plays a rabbi too busy for his congregation, and two pop stars cameo, but only the riffing Marshall delivers any chuckles, describing Irwin as having "the heart of a child and the bladder of a chihuahua."
Keeping Up with the Steins amounts to an Afterschool Special about the perils of letting pettiness and materialism crowd out family and faith. In the film's world, competitive parents and self-involved rabbis obscure the true meaning behind bar mitzvahs and a son and father can't play nice long enough to see out the celebration without a public fight.
Screenwriter Mark Zakarin (a producer of The L Word) manages some observations about adolescence that, though not so fresh, have the ring of truth and fairly question the arbitrariness of the ritual's timing. Ben's a "late developer" with jitters about his impending public reading from the Torah, and when he looks in the mirror and tells himself, "Today you are a man!", he's still gripping his SpongeBob toothbrush.
Unfortunately for director Marshall, Keeping Up with the Steins is a comedy fatally short on laughs. The jokes are mostly bad vaudeville, as when Piven asks, "How much for 50 Cent? Okay, how about 17 Cent?" or when Marshall asks, "What is this: Queer Eye for the Straight Goy?" Sometimes the situation comedy is so desperate that it's funny, as when Marshall pulls a sword cane on Adam Goldberg's street tough or skinny-dips in the backyard. Oy!
[For Groucho's interview with Garry Marshall, click here.]


text:
On the second floor of an early-1900s apartment building in Milan sits a Chanel doormat that is shared by two adjacent one-bedroom apartments. The first belongs to 47-year-old fashion director Anna Dello Russo. The second belongs to her clothes—and if you are, say, a crystal Miu Miu stiletto or a leopard-print Lanvin dress, you've got all the trappings of an aristocrat in preunified Italy.
The furniture in apartment number two is 19th-century Italian, and the space is filled with a pirate's booty of glittering designer shoes and costume jewelry. The walls are covered in blown-up photographs of the grand, gilded interiors of Palermo's Palazzo Gangi, the location for Visconti's Il Gattopardo; the one concession to modernity is the green marble bathroom and its updated plumbing. "You never know when the clothes might need a bath," Dello Russo says.
Such a living arrangement might be considered unusual by anyone who didn't own 4,000 pairs of shoes and 250 black tuxedo jackets and wasn't 100 percent fueled by fashion. "Anna would eat clothes if she could," says Sophie Djerlal, a colleague at Vogue Italia, where Dello Russo was a fashion editor in the Nineties.
Back then Dello Russo was, in her own words, dressing "like a man." But now, having helmed L'Uomo Vogue and served as fashion director of Japanese Vogue, she has morphed into Miss Maximalist—picture the ballsiness of Lady Gaga and the inventory of Imelda Marcos rolled into one supercharged style hurricane. During Fashion Week in Milan, she changes (usually in her chauffeured car) into rare-bird-of-fashion outfits no fewer than two or three times a day. In such getups as a gold sequined minidress by Emilio Pucci at three in the afternoon and a Roksanda Ilincic suit with huge feather humps that conjure a dark-angel linebacker, Dello Russo has become the crowned queen of street-style bloggers, who know that what she wears is likely to be bigger, bolder, and more trendsetting than what will be on the catwalks. "She truly loves fashion," remarks Scott Schuman, whose Sartorialist blog ardently chronicles the stylist. "What makes her unique is that there's a real sincerity. She respects the clothes."
Dello Russo's fixation came early, and from out of nowhere. "I was crazy about fashion from the day I was born," she says. As a child in Bari, where she grew up with a psychiatrist father and a not-clothes-obsessed mother, Dello Russo stalked her friends' mothers' closets and tortured her Barbies with relentless restylings. Her first important spree was at age 13: a Fendi handbag, umbrella, tissue holder, wallet, and key chain that she wore all together. "It never rains in Bari, so my friends asked, 'What are you doing with the umbrella?' And I said, 'How should I know? It's part of the look!'"
By high school she was a full-fledged slave to fashion. Once, she wore a pair of yellow shoes that her cat had used as a litter box the night before. They were instrumental to her preplanned all-yellow outfit, so she just rinsed them out. "But it got hot in the classroom, and there was this terrible stink of cat pee," she recalls. "I had to confess because I didn't want anyone thinking I had peed in my pants. They all screamed, 'Couldn't you have changed your shoes?'"
Such fierce dedication to fashion has only intensified with age. Dello Russo—who keeps her figure like a licorice whip with 6 a.m. swims at the Hotel Principe di Savoia—professes that it takes her "six months" to get dressed. For Fashion Week she will consider only pieces that are strong on shock value and that have never been worn. "The preparation," she says, sighing, "is truly scientific."
Just as rigorously mathematical is the layout of apartment number one, which has also been carefully mapped out to accommodate her rotating ensembles. New purchases get front-row treatment in the main walk-in closet, next to her leopard-print bedroom. A zoolike collection of exotic fur coats ("It's been a bloodbath—furs are my weakness," she admits) is maintained in labeled cloth bags, while a season's lesser models get relegated to nonslip hangers in the nosebleed back row. Once the season ends, everything is cleared out (except for the furs, which are exempt from expiration dates) to make way for new loot. Depending on the evicted item's star wattage, it may go next door, to apartment number two, from which it may or may not emerge. Or it may be exiled to a giant closeted basement: the fashion graveyard. For Dello Russo, if you're not new, you're about as good as dead. "I hate vintage clothes," she says, referring even to last year's Prada. "I love the smell of a new store, not an old dress."
Dello Russo prefers the aroma of retail to the smell of food, too. She installed her polished steel kitchen, roughly the size of a drinks cabinet, in a dim corner off the apartment's main hallway: "I had to choose between a kitchen and more closets, so I took the closets." (A quick survey of the fingerprint-less cupboards reveals a stock of sunflower seeds and San Pellegrino.) She also had to choose between a husband—whom she wed in 1996 in a dress with a 60-foot train designed by his best man, Stefano Gabbana—and more closets. "It barely lasted," she says of her marriage. "He said, 'Isn't there some closet space for me?' And I said, 'No.'"
In her typical easygoing way, Dello Russo laughs at the comedy of the situation. Now her companion in this fashion temple is Cucciolina, a miniature pinscher who shares her owner's wiry frame and golden mane but thankfully hasn't attempted to lay claim to any storage space. "The only thing she'll ever wear," Dello Russo says, "is her Hermès dog collar."
Go Inside Anna Dello Russo's Apartment-Cum-Closet
Dello Russo has never met a leopard she didn't like. The entire bedroom (and bed) in apartment number one is covered in bolts of spotted silk. Dolce & Gabbana bodysuit.
Christian Louboutin high-heeled fox booties and a superslick Comme des Garçons for Speedo bathing suit are not standard yoga gear, but who are we to argue?
In her gold coin–encrusted Dolce & Gabbana suit, Dello Russo is just as gilded as the extravagant Palazzo Gangi scenery in apartment number two.
Every inch of Dello Russo's home is decorated. "I hate white walls," she says, unnecessarily.
As slim as one of her nonslip hangers, Dello Russo wears an Yves Saint Laurent hat and transparent cape and a Dolce & Gabbana bra and briefs. Her Chinatown hair mannequins (wearing Philip Treacy hats) look on from above in apartment number two.
Dello Russo's Roksanda Ilincic suit gives her the air of a dark angel. The 19th-century Italian sofa is covered in vintage leopardskin.


text:
August 12, 2010
When Family Lore Turns Out to Be Even More Exciting!
As a teenager I heard stories about my great-grandfather's brother who walked Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1880, and sadly fell to his death. My uncle Roy claimed he had a newspaper clipping about this but couldn't find it.
I was intrigued but a bit skeptical. Niagara Falls? Tightrope? Nah.... But my uncle insisted and told me that the name of my great-grandpa's brother was Harmon Peer.
Many years later I discovered that Stephen Peer, a cousin to my great grandfather, had indeed walked Niagara Falls on a tightrope and fell to his death. The year was 1887. He has the dubious distinction of being the only person to ever die walking the Falls on a tightrope. Hmmm... most of the "facts" fit. But his name and relationship to my great grandfather weren't quite right. The year was wrong, but family lore is often a bit vague and not quite right. Was this the man?
Then I found a newspaper extract about a man named Harmon P. Peer who tied a thin wire cable to his ankles and jumped from the Niagara Suspension bridge in 1879. According to the extract, he died in the attempt. A check of my genealogy files and bingo! There was my great-grandfather Stephen Edward Peer and his brother Philip Harmon Peer! The ages were correct. The year of death was within one year. I had my man.
I was satisifed. Never gave it much more thought, it was just an intriguing tale to tell my grandchildren. I did wonder though why he tied that cable to his ankles before he jumped. Was it suicide? It seemd an odd way to do it. A stunt? The Peer family was known for its daredevil ways, perhaps he was the first bungie jumper!
And so the story of Harmon Peer sat in my files for many years. Until yesterday. I realized I didn't have his death certificate so went on a hunt. Nothing. His death was given as May 1879 in the newspaper extract. Odd that it isn't registered in the Ontario Deaths online at Ancestry.com
But then I scrutinized the extract more carefully. The date of the newspaper article was given as February. How could anything written in February be reporting a death near the end of May? (Note to self: READ documents more carefully next time! THINK about what I'm reading)
So I went on an Internet hunt. Lo and behold I found a dozen newspaper reports in the USA and in Australia (yes, Australia) about Great great uncle Harmon Peer from Teetersville Ontario.
It seems Harmon was a jumper. He was a showman, his jumps were planned and executed with precision, and he attracted huge crowds of specatators! It was fascinating to read about his successful jumps from the Niagara Suspension Bridge and how he got his start - jumping from the Watson & Co. Elevators in Milwaukee, a distance of 62 feet. I haven't yet found a newspaper article that describes that jump in detail and I can only estimate the year - around 1870-1875 most likely.
By the time he made his record-setting jump from the Niagara Suspension Bridge he was about 36 years old. It was May 21, 1879. He dressed in tights with a wide rubber life-preserver fastened to him. It was funnel shaped and went from his hips to his armpits, allowing freedom of movement in the water.
A sponge was tied over his mouth and nose, and two smaller sponges stuffed into his ears. I'm not making this up, it is all in the newspaper articles. A leather shoulder suspender with two brass rings at his shoulders came next. To the rings was attached a thin brass wire to assist in keeping him upright.
A wide elastic band just above his knees and a second around his feet to keep them from spreading completed his outfit. For the May 21st jump he had a wooden platform suspended out from the bridge but for earlier jumps he simply fell over the bridge railing. The May 21st jump gave him the world record of 192 feet.
He completed the jump successfully and I have not yet found an article regarding his death. So now I have to ask myself - did he die? Or was the extract completely wrong?
According to all the 1879 newspapers I found (The Mercury in Hobart Tasmania, The Hawaiian Gazette, Janesville Wisconsin Gazette, Jackson Sentinal in Iowa and others) Harmon intended on making another leap off the Niagara Bridge on July 4th 1879.
I am now seeking some evidence of this July 4th jump or his death! Without online access to Ontario newspapers my hopes lie in the American or Australian ones but so far no luck. I am also hoping to find a newspaper story about the Watson Elevator jump in Milwaukee.
Another interesting tidbit (if true!) in some of the newspapers was that Harmon had fallen from the mast of a sailing boat sometime around 1870 in the Caribbean, then again in Milwaukee from another vessel. I wasn't aware he was a sailor so am not sure if this was true or he was inventing tales to help promote his jumping.
But what a story! What a great find. To think that my Uncle Roy's story was pretty close to the mark. It just goes to show that although family lore is often myth, it just as often has a kernel of truth. In this case it was merely taking two true events and confusing them as one.
This year I'll have even better stories to entertain my grandchildren. Harmon Peer the jumper and Stephen Peer the tightrope walker are both in their family and chidren love stories of adventure and stunts and daredevil relatives. I just hope it doesn't encourage the same actions from them!
Oh, and if anyone has access to newspapers that might carry some stories about Harmon Peer, I'd be overjoyed to know about them!
7 comments:
- Unknown said...
Try this link: http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/newspapers/
more specifically this link:
Several articles mentioning Harmon Peers. - 4:48 PM
- J.M. said...
I am often surprised at the amount of family lore that is true, even if not completely factual correct. This is a prime example, and what a great story indeed to tell your grandchildren!
- Kathryn Lake Hogan said...
Greetings Lorine,
I am in Niagara Falls right now reading your post about your daredevil ancestors!! If I remember correctly, the IMAX theatre is featuring a movie about the Falls daredevils. I didn't see it. It might be worthwhile contacting them to check it out to see if Harmon is in it. Wonder if the Niagara Falls archives has info? Just a couple of thoughts...
~Kathryn - 9:12 AM
- Unknown said...
Did you see this one... looks like he never made the jump on July 4th:
A Niagara Falls Jumper Buffalo, N. Y., July 4 (News Article)
Date: 1879-07-05;
Paper: Inter Ocean
He's listed as "H. P. Peer" in the article. - 8:53 AM
- Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...
Interesting that two family members would perform stunts at The Falls. Maybe setting the record was enough and he retired to a quiet life. At Family Search in the Ohio records are two births, a boy born 23 Apr 1892 and a girl born 30 Aug 1894 in Cleveland to Harmon P Peer, born abt 1843-44 Canada and his wife, Martha. The son was named Harmon P Peer, didn't discover the name of the daughter and per Martha's death record and the limited amount of census info available at Family Search it appears they either divorced or he died soon after. (Footnote.com is down right now so I can't check there.)Could be I have the wrong guy and I'm sending you on a wild goose chase.
- Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...
Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier but the Niagara Falls Gazette is available at Old Fulton Post Cards. You find lots of pages quickly by searching for "H P Peer." There were also a couple of articles from later in the summer in one of the Oswego papers - search "Harmon Peer" that said he jumped from a ship near Toronto. The site is very slow to load pages evening and weekends!
Steve indeed lost his life on the wire.....he was doing a quick demostration for a couple of friends after leaving the Elgin hotel and slipped and fell into the gorge. Intersting how he learned his trade, lived here in Stamford township and learned to tightrope using fence posts and vines on the family farm. Worked for the great Belini who was very famous here in Niagara on the ropes....Asked belini if he could go out on the wire and belini told him no... In between performances he did get out there..and Belini was so mad because Peer was performing stunts on the wire that put Belini to shame...Belini decided to cut the rope he was on and the crowd watching attacked him.....causing Belini to leave town and never return. the july 4th perfomance o the suspension bridge didnt go to well for his cousin H.P. apparently he got too drunk to safely preform and abandoned it all at the last minute to the dismay of the waiting crowd........lol


text:
Progressive metallers Periphery are streaming Clear, their upcoming experimental release, which will be available January 28 through Sumerian Records.
Check out the entire release (You'll see why we're not calling it an album or EP) below — and be sure to tell us what you think of it in the comments or on Facebook.
"Clear is an experiment to explore all of the different writing styles in the band," says Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor. "It's rare when you have a band where every member is capable of writing and producing music. With each member controlling their own track, this recording enabled us to go down any path we chose in terms of style and sound.
"Every track also contains a melodic theme established in Clear's intro track, 'Overture.'
"This common thread links all of the songs together, even though they all sound wildly different. Clear shouldn't be confused with our new third full-length album that we're currently working on, nor should it be considered an EP, as it rides somewhere in-between clocking in at 30 minutes. Enjoy!"


text: Julie Veach is Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau. Before becoming Chief in July 2012, Ms. Veach served as Deputy General Counsel for the Commission, focusing on administrative and general law issues. Prior to joining the Office of General Counsel in 2009, she served as Deputy Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau, where she led many of the Bureau's efforts involving broadband, competition, and data gathering and analysis. Ms. Veach held a variety of other positions in the Wireline Competition Bureau. Before joining the FCC in 2001, Ms. Veach was an associate with the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, and she clerked for the Hon. Michael S. Kanne of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She received her B.A. from Purdue University and graduated magna cum laude from the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington.


text:
Sorry for being MIA but I'm officially back on the radar!
A couple months back in October I was asked to shoot some new spots for The Cartoon Network. Now a couple of the spots are finished and I thought it was time to blog about them.
The cool thing was this was one of the only few times that they used live action people!
We had to shoot around 10 spots with a group of kids who sang different theme songs in each spot. Of course, this would all be accompanied by crazy cartoon effects which wou...Read more
Backlog blog #2!
A couple months ago I had worked Behind-the-scenes filming for this Sammi Cheng photoshoot for british brand Aquascutum.
This was for their new fall/winter collection and they flew in the photo team all the way from France.
Coincidentally, this shoot happened a week after the Eason shoot in the SAME studio!
I admit it, I'm guilty.
I've been a bad boy. Or a neglectful partner.
Or to quote Pacino, "An absentee landlord".
Either way, I haven't been there and I've been neglecting my blogging duties.
I equate it to "working out at the gym syndrome". You want to do it, you enjoy doing it and you know it's good for you BUT... It's something that you have to make the time to do. It's something that can easily be pushed to "Oh, I can do it tomorrow", ...Read more
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!Oh yeah...Since this is our last year you guys better enjoy it before...
For the past couple months I've been doing quite a lot of traveling and therefore have been a little behind on blogging. I still have a backlog of trips to KOREA, JAPAN and LOS ANGELES to blog about!But first...This is 852 Film's 2nd feature length film and is directed by WONG CHING PO (Jiang Hu, Ah So) and stars JUNO MAK in his first feature film leading role, and SORA AOI in he...Read more
So I know this event already happened several weeks ago and has been blogged about multiple times....BUT I have an excuse! Immediately after this event (on the same day in fact) I was on a plane to Korea for a week! Then when I got back I was swamped with work trying to meet a Nov. 1st deadline!SO....I'm gonna blog about it now...Read more
Here's a quickie entry:All I got to say is:##"I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER! More ...Read more
Thanks to everyone who've spent the time to read my little musings! Hopefully you guys will still be around for the next 100,000!
Its been a long time coming, but finally part 2 of "Now I Can" is finished and released on the world!Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5oY5MWIyZYAnd here are a couple behind-the-scenes photos:Read more
The day has finally come...After 27 Days, 3 countries and 2 rainstorms we've come to the end of the 2nd Phase of production... SuperCapitalist has wrapped!I was brought on to this project more than 8 months ago by
Derek Ting after meeting him through our mutual friend
Read more


text:
NATIONAL: 'Mystery meeting' sparks media frenzy at Buckingham Palace
Media from across the world have gathered outside the gates of Buckingham Palace this morning amid speculation of a major announcement.
The national media are reporting that the Queen's senior aides were told to come to London for an emergency meeting, news which has sparked a media frenzy.
Speculation regarding the health of senior royals is now rife on social media.
The Queen met with Theresa May yesterday at Buckingham Palace to mark the dissolution of Parliament for the General Election.


text:
Pittsburgh, PA – Pittsburgh Steelers running backs Rashard Mendenhall and Jonathan Dwyer are both listed as doubtful for Sunday's game against the New York Giants.
Mendenhall has appeared in just two games this season due to ACL surgery in the offseason and an Achilles injury suffered in Week 6, recording 74 yards on 19 carries while adding 44 yards on four receptions.
Dwyer and Isaac Redman, who is listed as probable for Sunday's contest after missing the last two games with an ankle injury, have carried the load for Pittsburgh in Mendenhall's absence.
Dwyer is coming of back-to-back 100-yard rushing games and has 299 yards on 58 rushes over five games this season, while Redman has 127 yards on 50 carries in five games.
In other injury news, safety Ryan Clark (concussion), running back Baron Batch (shin) and linebacker Brandon Johnson (hamstring) are also listed as probable for Sunday.
Safety Troy Polamalu (calf), offensive tackle Marcus Gilbert (ankle) and linebacker Stevenson Sylvester (hamstring) have all been ruled out of the contest.


text:
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. – Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder and ESPN reporter Samantha Steele have tied the knot.
Ponder confirmed on Wednesday that the two were married at a courthouse in Wisconsin on Monday.
A Minnesota quarterback getting married in Wisconsin? Ponder says he knows some Vikings fans won't be happy that their quarterback decided to get married across the border, but he was just trying to keep it quiet.
He says they wanted to get married before the holidays "and for some other personal reasons" and that it will not distract him from the game against Houston on Sunday. Ponder calls it the biggest game of his career, with the Vikings chasing down a playoff berth.
Coach Leslie Frazier says he's happy for Ponder and not at all concerned about the timing.


text:
About This Project
What is Starting Point: Teaching Economics?
This project grew out of recent work by Mark Maier and Scott Simkins (National Science Foundation Grants DUE 00-88303 and 04-11037) investigating pedagogies more commonly used outside of economics and adapting them for our discipline. Their work reveals that there are many pedagogical innovations that economists were unaware of, at least those teaching in the U.S. This project grew out of the recognition that a readily accessible, comprehensive set of resources for a wide range of pedagogical practices was needed.
Starting Point: Teaching Economics is a National Science Foundation funded project (DUE 0817382) that is being developed in collaboration with the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College (MN) and will build on their successful Pedagogic Services framework that makes pedagogical modules accessible to practitioners across disciplines via a central pedagogic database. Co-PIs on the project are:
- Mark Maier, Glendale Community College (Glendale, CA)
- Cathy Manduca, SERC, Carleton College
- KimMarie McGoldrick, University of Richmond
- Scott Simkins, North Carolina A&T State University
Learn more about other project participants
Starting Point is an economics pedagogic portal that seeks to:
- introduce economists to innovative teaching strategies developed both within and beyond the discipline of economics. We are especially interested in promoting cross-disciplinary adoption and adaptation of research-based teaching/learning practices.
- provide instructors with the tools to begin integrating and assessing these teaching strategies in their own classrooms. Each teaching strategy included in the portal will include background knowledge about the strategy and how best to use it, reasons for using the strategy, and examples illustrating the teaching strategy in practice.
- promote the sharing of teaching innovations among instructors. The Starting Point site will encourage instructors to submit classroom-based examples illustrating the use of the teaching strategies included on the site for review and cataloging.
Why Should Economics Instructors use the Starting Point Site?
While collectively useful for the enhancement of our understanding of pedagogical practices, currently available teaching resources in economics are often disconnected from each other and typically stand in isolation from other disciplines and from research on student learning. As a result, economists are often unaware of educational developments within their field or across disciplines. Starting Point provides a comprehensive array of research-based instructional strategies aimed at promoting student learning in economics. Using Starting Point, economics instructors can quickly compare a wide variety of effective teaching strategies to match their teaching style, course level, content, and student learning objectives.
We also hope that Starting Point will promote a more intentional development of communal, cumulative knowledge-building in economics education, similar to the educational research process in some science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, especially physics education research. The extent to which teaching strategies are publicly discussed and examples are shared in economics is typically limited to formal presentations at regional and national disciplinary conferences, refereed journal articles, and collected volume publications. As part of the Starting Point project, we hope to promote the idea of a Teaching Commons, "a conceptual space in which communities of educators committed to inquiry and innovation come together to exchange ideas about teaching and learning and use them to meet the challenges of educating students." (Huber and Hutchings 2007)
How can Economics Instructors use the Starting Point Site?
Learning more about the pedagogic technique. Each module contains the following resources:
Learn more about available pedagogic techniques
- Description of the pedagogic practice and its distinguishing features ("What is...?")
- Information on when and why the method is particularly effective, with references to educational (general and economics-specific) and learning sciences research (Why use...?)
- Understanding how to implement the pedagogic practice, including how to use the method effectively, including tips for the instructor ("How to...")
- References, including references to web-only material
Browsing available teaching examples. Each example contains the following components:
- Description of the example and a complete set of teaching materials needed for implementation, such as handouts, data and instructions for students
- Teaching notes and tips for the instructor
- Context for how this activity has been used, including the type of course and at what point in the course
- Measurable goals for student learning and assessment information that describes how the instructor can measure students' achievement of specified learning goals
- Author attribution and contact information
- References and links to other resources supporting the example
How can You Contribute to the Starting Point Project?
We'd love to have you participate in this project. Two opportunities currently exist for contributing. First, we are seeking feedback on module content. Each module will have links to a form that allows visitors to the site to provide constructive feedback and suggestions for enhancement. Second, we are interested in having instructors share their expertise through the submission of examples illustrating the use of teaching strategies included in the Starting Point site. Contributors will be asked to complete the example components described above using an online form. Example submissions will be reviewed before being accepted for inclusion on the Starting Point site.
Learn more about submitting an example


text:
Message Board
Uli Twelker and Roland Schmitt Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that McAdoo has written!
Author McAdoo's Book Reviews
The Apple Orchard Bed and Breakfast
Five Star, Jul 2002, 26.95, 230 pp. ISBN: 0786242345 Wealthy recluse W. G. Preston advertises for a woman to serve as manager of a bed and breakfast. In fact the B&B is a front as Preston really seeks a wife and plans a competition among eight female applicants where one each month will be sent home packing. Preston plans to marry the final survivor. The women are a diverse lot. The widow grandmother Marjorie is witty and friendly yet naive...


text:
8 Things You Didn't Know About Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones was one of our favorite movie characters growing up -- he ate brains, killed Nazis and wasn't ashamed to admit he hates snakes. We assume this love is universal. That's why we made this handy little infographic just for you.
Read it and learn everything there is to know about Indy so you can sound super-smart the next time you have all your friends over to watch 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' (We're assuming you do that every couple of months at least.)
Text by Carl Pettit
Infographic designed by Kristy Puchko


text:
30 Years Later, Vincent Chin Seen As Turning Point
Vincent Chin was at his bachelor party in Detroit in 1982 when he got into a brawl with two white men. Witnesses say the men mistook him for being Japanese and used racial slurs. Chin was killed, but the two men never served time. Frank Wu speaks with host Michel Martin about how Chin's death became a catalyst for Asian-American activists.
Now we want to turn to an event that for decades now has been considered a pivotal moment in civil rights history, especially in leading a generation of young Asian-Americans into activism.
Thirty years ago, a Chinese-American man named Vincent Chin was celebrating his upcoming wedding at a bachelor party at a bar in Detroit. At some point that evening, Chin got into a fight with Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz, who then beat Vincent Chin with a baseball bat so badly, he later died.
Witnesses say the two men used racial slurs, and believing Chin was Japanese, allegedly blamed him for the loss of jobs. The two men who killed him did not go to prison. They were, instead, sentenced to three years of probation and fined a few thousand dollars.
Our next guest says that episode and the punishment - or lack thereof - sparked a new activism among Asian-Americans around the country, including his own. Frank Wu is the dean of the University of California Hastings College of Law. He was a teenager growing up just outside Detroit when Chin was killed, and he's now writing a book about the case and he's with us now.
Welcome back, Dean Wu. Thank you so much for speaking with us once again.
FRANK WU: Great to be with you today.
MARTIN: Now, you wrote a piece called "Why Vincent Chin Matters" for the New York Times on what would have been right around the 30th anniversary of Chin's death, but I wondered if I could get you to take me back to when you were a teenager, how you heard about this case and what it brought up for you.
WU: Sure. Well, like most teenagers, like most kids, I wouldn't have wanted to talk about civil rights or race or ethnicity, but I always knew that my family was different. We were the only Oriental family on the block. That term was still in use then, sort of suggesting exoticism, and so I faced the childhood cruelties on the playground, the common slurs, you know, being called chink or Jap or gook, being asked if I ate dogs, how I could see with eyes like that, the usual teasing and taunting.
And, you know, kids don't want to think about that, don't want to have anything to do with that, and so I always thought maybe it was just me. You know, I didn't know about civil rights because I was a kid and my parents didn't speak the language of civil rights because they literally spoke a different language.
So I read about the Chin case in the newspaper, like so many others, and in that moment I realized that it wasn't me, that it wasn't in my head, that even though I hadn't faced that type of violence, I'd heard the same words, I had heard the same sentiments, no matter how hard I tried to assimilate, to fit in, having been born in this country.
That case made me see that - well, as people used to say, you all look the same, that it didn't matter if you were Chinese or Japanese, that they would tease and taunt and that that could lead to much, much worse.
MARTIN: You said that the Vincent Chin case was a major turning point because it showed the power of, quote, "you all look the same," and that it kind of unified people of different national origins into kind of a shared consciousness about activism. And do you think that is, in part, part of the reason that you became a lawyer and a civil rights lawyer and followed the course that you did?
WU: Absolutely. I wanted to be an architect when I was a kid. My parents bought me a drafting table at a garage sale and I would sit in the basement and draw houses, but this case made me see the importance of standing up and speaking out. And no one had ever seen that before. No one had seen angry Asian-Americans marching, carrying banners, as they did - not just in Detroit, the Motor City, where this occurred, my hometown - but across the nation. Vincent Chin's grieving mother - she'd lost her husband, Vincent's father, just a few months before.
She traveled the country giving speeches, meeting with the Justice Department, and this became a rallying point. People said remember Vincent Chin or justice for Vincent Chin, and it remains that way today. It's a case that captures everything about the Asian-American experience, not just you all look the same, but that you're a perpetual foreigner.
You know, what the father and stepson who killed Chin with the baseball bat - what they allegedly said - now, they've always denied it. They've said no, no, we're not bigots, which to me makes the case even more troubling and compelling because if they're just ordinary people at a bar, that means that it could be any ordinary person at a bar.
But what they said was this. It's because of you little - and then there's a word that we can't say on the air.
MARTIN: Uh-huh. We don't use. Yeah. Epithet.
WU: Yeah. It's because of you little blank that we're out of work. And then they used racial slurs. That's what various witnesses said. So it didn't matter that Chin was Chinese, not Japanese, that he was an American, that he was just like them. You know, he had a temper too, too much testosterone. He'd, you know, had a few drinks that night. Except for the color of skin, the texture of hair and the shape of his eyes. So the irony here is that these were all working class guys, ordinary guys.
Chin was not - he didn't set out to be a hero or a martyr. He was just looking forward to getting married, and he was killed on the night of his bachelor's party. What more all-American, you know, activity could there be?
MARTIN: But before we let you go - we have about a minute left, and as we said, you are writing a book about this case, so I do hope you'll come back and talk to us more about the book as your investigation goes further. But as you said, the two men have denied all along that racial epithets were said or that race was a part of it at all. They said it was a bar fight that went wrong.
And I wondered if, you know, 30 years on, does that even matter?
WU: Right. Well, we frame this in stark black and white. It's either a bar brawl or it's a hate crime. Maybe it's both. Maybe it's ordinary people who, you know - no one these days stands up and says that's right, I'm a racist. And that's what's scary about this case.
According to the two defendants, they just snapped. That was their word. They just snapped and - for whatever reason. And we can't look into their hearts or minds, but that's why we should care about this case, that two people could take a baseball bat out of the trunk of their car and crack open someone's head. Now, whatever the motivation, that's a little more than a bar brawl.
MARTIN: Frank Wu, I hope you'll come back and talk to us when you finish your book.
WU: That would be great.
MARTIN: Frank Wu is the dean of the UC Hastings College of the Law. He's also writing a book about the Vincent Chin case and he was kind enough to join us from San Francisco.
Dean Wu, thank you.
WU: Thanks.
Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


text:
House cafeterias change names for 'french' fries and 'french' toastMove reflects anger over France's stance on Iraq
By Sean Loughlin
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," in a culinary rebuke of France stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq. Ditto for "french toast," which will be known as "freedom toast." The name changes were spearheaded by two Republican lawmakers who held a news conference Tuesday to make the name changes official on the menus. Across the country, some private restaurants have done the same. "This action today is a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France," said Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration.
Ney, whose committee has authority over the House cafeterias, directed the change, after colleague Walter Jones, R-North Carolina, circulated a letter suggesting such a move. Jones said he was following the example of a local restaurant owner in his North Carolina district. "I represent a district with multiple military bases that have deployed thousands of troops," Jones said in a statement. "As I've watched these men and women wave good-bye to their loved ones, I am reminded of the deep love they have for the freedom of this nation and their desire to fight for the freedom of those who are oppressed overseas. Watching France's self -serving politics of passive aggression in this effort has discouraged me more than I can say." The name change was criticized by one young man in a House cafeteria. "That's completely ludicrous to me," he said. France has pressed the United Nations to give weapons inspectors more time in Iraq, saying the U.S. and British-led move to war is premature. Its stance has angered some U.S. lawmakers. Rep. Jim Saxton, R-New Jersey, has introduced legislation in the House that would block any French company from receiving U.S. government aid or financing in any reconstruction of Iraq. Another measure discourages American tourists, businesses and the government from participating in the 2003 Paris Air show. But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said he didn't think Congress needed to take any formal steps to signal its disapproval of France. "I don't think we have to retaliate against France," he said. "They have isolated themselves. They have resigned from any responsibility for the war on terror." Asked why he was focusing on France when other nations, including Germany and Russia, oppose the U.S. position on Iraq, Jones said it was because France had taken the lead in challenging the United States. Officials with the French Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. -- CNN Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl contributed to this report.